Why did I choose to read this book? For one thing, I’m in Asia (Korea) and I’ve been reading about Buddhism, two books not reviewed in the blog (The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler, M.D., and Awakening the Buddha Within by Lama Surya Das). Yesterday, I visited a Buddhist temple, actually the headquarters for Korean Buddhism. The book was already in my Kindle library and the title seemed relevant. And, it has consistently gotten high marks by Amazon as one of the better historical fictions written this year. The book is about the hardships the Japanese suffered in the process of immigrating to the U.S., and of course, it also focused a bit on the hardships at home that drove them to seek a better life. This story focused on the women who were lured to America to find husbands, men who were terribly misrepresented to them by people who were paid by the number of women they could seduce into going. The time period covered was from the early 1900s through WWII and the internment camps. For most, it was a brutal journey at every step. The author was clever in presenting the information, and it was very readable. But, as an American history student, I knew about this period and the hardships of the Japanese – I didn’t learn anything new. If you’re ignorant to this aspect of American immigration, then it’s worth reading. I think the title reference to Buddha in the Attic had to do with leaving their culture and religion behind, hiding it away as a part of the effort to fit into a society that was so hard to comprehend and which treated them so badly. On the whole, it does not get my recommendation because it is too nakedly brutal. This was realism well done, not escapist literature.
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